The Vase and the Hourglass
by hannahsoapy
Summary: "There is only one entrance to that room, and I was near it the whole time," she insisted.


Submission for Round 10 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Chaser 1 for the Chudley Cannons

Prompt: Save Amelia Bones

Optional Prompts: (word) reflection, (object) vase, (object) hourglass

Word Count: 2960

* * *

"Looks pretty straightforward to me, sir."

Robards nodded with resigned weariness.

They stood in the spell-wrecked home office of Amelia Bones, his former boss and friend. Being an Auror, he had seen his fair share of corpses, but nothing was worse than when the corpse was someone you'd known.

Robards sighed, but he couldn't help agreeing with the junior Auror he'd brought along with him. There wasn't much they could do anyway, with all the damage to the room, except record what observations they still could.

There had been clear evidence of broken wards, which could have been assumed anyway by the Dark Mark cast above her home, and the amount of destruction around the room spoke to how fiercely Bones had fought to stay alive. There were few that could match Bones in combat, and it narrowed the possible Death Eaters that were sent after her to a select few – and Voldemort himself.

Robards shivered a little, and turned to junior Auror Smith, who was looking closely at something on Bones' desk.

"Funny it's still running, sir," Smith said. He gestured at what he'd been peering at, a simple hourglass of carved wood, and the sleeve of his robe caught on the edge, sending it spinning off the desk.

Robards reacted quickly, dropping and catching it before the delicate instrument was smashed to bits, and he placed it back on the desk carefully, noting, as Smith had, that it was indeed curious that the sand was still flowing down. Whatever had Bones been counting down to? It was still days away from now, judging by the amount of sand left, and the pace it was running at.

Smith gasped, abruptly drawing his attention away from the slow trickle of sand.

"What?" Robards asked sharply. Smith looked a bit pale, and he had his wand drawn and pointed at a decorative vase on the middle shelf of a bookcase.

"I thought I saw her ghost," Smith said, shakily. "Think it was just a reflection, though."

"Are you sure?" Robards asked. It would actually be very useful if Bones had stuck around as a ghost.

"Yeah," Smith said, lowering his wand. "Sorry, sir."

"That's alright," Robards sighed. "Come on, let's go back to the office."

There was nothing else to do. If everything ran smoothly, perhaps they could even have the paperwork finished today.

* * *

Indeed, the case was closed by midafternoon, and Bones' body was released to her family.

Two days later, Robards returned from his lunch hour, to be met at his door by his secretary, who looked a bit nervous.

"Miss Bones is waiting for you," he said. "I didn't think you'd mind, under the circumstances."

"I don't mind at all, Pritchard," Robards reassured him. He'd worked with Bones for many years, and one of her most frequent visitors had been her young niece, Susan. He'd used to keep a jar of Fizzing Whizbees on his desk, and it was a rare sight to see Susan with her feet on the ground in the DMLE offices.

Bones' funeral had just been held that morning, at six am. It was far too early in the morning for anything to be happening, in Robards's opinion, but apparently Bones had specifically requested in her will that her funeral be held at the sixth hour on the third day after her death.

He supposed Susan wanted something from her aunt's office, and he couldn't begrudge her that. He'd cleaned it out before Thicknesse had moved in, and already had a box set aside of personal items that Bones had left.

"Afternoon, Bones Jr.," he greeted as he entered his office, and noted that Pritchard had thoughtfully fetched some tea for her while she was waiting. That man really deserved a raise, he thought.

"What can I do for you?"

"Something odd happened after the funeral," Susan said hesitantly, as Robards took a seat behind his desk. He motioned for her to continue.

"We'd set the cremation charm to go off right after the service, and nobody ever wants to be in the room when it… well, you know," she said, and then paused for a moment, seeming to gather herself. "When we went back in the flowers I'd put in her hands were on the side table."

"But… the body… had been burned?" Robards asked, for clarification.

"It seemed like it," Susan said, in a way that clearly indicated she didn't believe it.

"What exactly is bothering you about it, Susan?" Robards asked. He really had no idea what she was getting at.

"I think she's alive," Susan blurted, and then looked at him defiantly, daring him to contradict her.

"Susan…" Robards started to say, but he was cut off.

"There is only one entrance to that room, and I was near it the whole time," she insisted. "And I saw the report on her wand, her last spell was some kind of self-preservation charm, she could've…"

Robards had started shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Susan," he said quietly.

She looked devastated, and Robards hated that he had to be the one to do this to her. Tears started welling in her eyes, but she blinked them back after a few moments.

"Just – just come look?" she begged him, voice cracking.

Robards looked into her desperate eyes and sighed.

It must be some kind of familial trait, he decided as he rose from behind his desk.

He'd never been able to ignore a request from a Bones.

* * *

The ashes were, unsurprisingly to Robards, free of suspicion.

Susan's face fell again when the _Priori _spell showed a fleeting image of her aunt.

"Sorry," Robards said, again.

"It's okay," Susan said, although her eyes looked a little red. "Thank you, anyways."

Robards just nodded.

They left the room quietly a few minutes later, and as they passed the open door to Bones' old study, he couldn't help glancing in the wide-open door.

And then he paused, catching sight of the drained hourglass on the desk.

Susan had stopped, too, and looked up at him curiously.

"Do you know what the hourglass was counting down to?" he asked, pointing at it.

"I've never seen it before in my life," she frowned, striding quickly into the office and snatching it up before Robards could stop her.

Luckily, it appeared to be harmless, as Susan turned it in her hands without any ill effects.

"It's just an hourglass," she said, setting it back down.

"No," Robards said slowly, watching the sand. "It's going much faster now. There must have been some enchantment on it, before."

There was a spark in Susan's eyes now.

"My aunt's got a Pensieve in that cabinet."

* * *

There were very few spells that you could cast effectively inside a memory, but one of those was the _Tempus _spell. It was actually quite useful, when establishing whether the memory provided as an alibi by a suspect was valid.

Today, however, all Robards cared about was the amount of time left on the hourglass when he'd been in Bones' office the first time.

He could hear Susan holding her breath as he cast it. The glowing hours appeared, floating midair, and he frantically tried to count up to when they would have run out.

"That's this morning!" Susan cried, a moment before he determined it for himself. "She's alive!"

"It's a possibility," Robards admitted, "but don't get your hopes up. We don't know for certain, and we don't know who may or may not be an enemy."

It was a harsh thing to say, but necessary. He couldn't reopen the investigation; he didn't know who in the Ministry was on which side, and he didn't know if one or both sides was meant to be in the dark about the actual circumstances of Bones' death. He didn't even trust his own boss with this.

Susan met his eyes fearlessly, however, and gave him a sharp nod of agreement.

They exited the memory, and before the Pensieve had shut itself away back in the cabinet, she was poking around the room, sliding open drawers and peeking in all the cabinet doors. Robards couldn't fault her eagerness – he too was hopeful that he'd overlooked something earlier in the week.

He started looking around as well, but Susan beat him to it.

"Aha!" she declared, and Robards turned to see her holding up a potions vial, dug out of a desk drawer.

"It's just a potions vial," he pointed out to her.

"She wasn't on any," Susan said. "Besides, look at it. It's one of those fancy ones."

Robards took the proffered vial and saw that she was right. It wasn't a standard potions vial at all. The lip was slightly curled, and subtle striations had been carved into the inside of the glass. It was the type of vial that high-level Potions Masters used for their most valuable brews. He squinted at the top edge of the vial, trying to make out if there was a maker's mark.

Just visible for a moment as he turned it through the light, he caught the inscription: _FG_.

"Fine Glasswares," he said aloud.

"What's that?" Susan asked.

"They make this type of vial," he told her. "I'll get the orders manifest, and we'll see if anyone on that list made your aunt a potion."

Susan looked like she might cry again.

"Thanks," she croaked.

"No problem, Bones Jr.," Robards said teasingly, and he was gratified by a shy smile breaking its way across her face.

* * *

A week later, he'd hit a dead end.

There had been no problem getting a list of customers from Fine Glasswares, but not a single one of them had talked to Bones.

His head made a satisfying clunk as it connected with his desk. Robards really did not want to tell Susan that he'd gotten her hopes up for nothing, but it seemed like that was exactly what he'd have to do.

He sighed for the millionth time in the last week. With Bones' death, they were a bit understaffed, and it didn't help that Thicknesse had never been an Auror, so Robards was stuck doing a lot of the things that normally the Department Head would handle. He felt like he was going to drop dead from exhaustion.

He hoped he found Bones alive, just so he could make her take her job back.

"Well?" Susan's voice chirped from the doorway, hopefully.

Robards lifted his head wearily.

"No leads with the manifest, Susan," he admitted, expecting to see her face fall again. She did look a little disappointed, but not nearly as much as he expected.

"That's alright," she said, seating herself in one of the chairs in front of his desk. "I've got something else."

Robards perked up. Susan looked smug. What had he overlooked?

"Floo call history," she announced, and pulled out a sheet of parchment from inside her robes. "Look who's on it."

Robards grabbed his reading spectacles from the desk and pored over the list.

"Severus Snape," he said, spotting it about halfway down. Bones had Floo-called him several days in a row, about two weeks before her death. Snape hadn't been on the list from Fine Glasswares, but he was a Potions Master.

Robards thought back, but he couldn't recall any cases that had needed a consultation from a Potions Master in the last month. There shouldn't have been any reason for Bones to Floo-call him.

"Well done, Bones Jr.," he told Susan, and she blushed a little at the praise.

"Shall we go interrogate him now?" she asked eagerly. Robards couldn't help a short bark of laughter, but he quelled it quickly.

"We can go talk to him," he conceded. "No interrogating. This is all off-books."

"Right," Susan said, a glint in her eyes as she purposefully drew out the vowel. Robards rolled his eyes at her.

"Come on then, Bones Jr.," he said, leading the way out of his office. "No time to waste."

* * *

They arrived outside Spinner's End with a quiet pop and approached the unnaturally still house slowly. The wards slid over them with an uncomfortable shiver, and after a tense moment, Robards knew that Snape definitely knew that they were there.

The bastard still made them wait a solid thirty seconds after they knocked at the door before opening it.

"Auror Robards, Miss Bones," Snape said smoothly, with the slightest lift of his eyebrow at Susan's presence. "What can I do for you?"

"Can we take this inside?" Robards said, although it wasn't really a question. "It's about Bones."

Snape didn't bother hiding his irritation, but he let them in, and led them into his gloomy drawing room.

Robards and Susan settled themselves on the drab sofa as a tea service drifted in and set itself in front of them. After they had their helping of tea, Snape looked at them pointedly.

"What do you need?" the Potions Master asked directly.

"Well – "

"What did you talk to my aunt about three weeks ago?" Susan said, cutting him off.

"A case," Snape said shortly. "Which I believe is now closed, and confidential."

"Really?" Robards asked. "Which case was that? The DMLE hasn't consulted you for a case in the last three months."

Snape's jaw clenched. "Obviously," he drawled, "you aren't told about every case under the DMLE's jurisdiction."

Robards couldn't deny the truth of that, but he was Head Auror, and doing half the job of the Department Head. Perhaps he hadn't seen the details of every case, but he was certain none of them had required Snape.

"Did you help my aunt fake her death or not?" Susan cried, jumping straight to it, eyes blazing fiercely.

"Is this an official inquiry?" Snape said lazily, clearly intending to be uncooperative.

"No," Robards told him. "Bones' death is a closed case. I haven't reopened it, and I won't be any time soon."

Snape was visibly surprised for a moment, although he quickly reigned in his reaction.

"Well, that does change things," he said, and then, raising his voice a little, asked, "Shall an Unbreakable Vow do the trick?"

There was a long, pregnant pause, and then a voice came from the hall that Robards had thought he'd never hear again.

"Don't be ridiculous, Severus," said Bones, entering the drawing room.

"Bones!" Robards cried.

"I knew it!" Susan exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

"Very good, Susan," Bones said. "Hello, Robards. How is the department?"

"You wouldn't happen to want your job back?" Robards asked hopefully. Bones only laughed.

"No, it's best I stayed dead," she said. "Now, tell me, what tipped you off? I had hoped to cover all my tracks."

"The flowers," Susan said quickly.

"The hourglass," Robards added. "And the potions vial, although that didn't really go anywhere. Still don't know why he wasn't on the list."

Snape just gave him a thin, superior smile.

"Hmph," Bones said. "I thought my reflection in the vase had given me away."

"That _was_ you?" Robards asked incredulously.

"It was your astral projection, right?" Susan asked. "That's how you made yourself look dead?"

"Exactly," Bones praised her niece, and even Snape appeared to be impressed. "I should start at the beginning," she said. "Voldemort wanted me dead."

Robards nodded; he'd known this already. Bones had been getting threats for weeks before her 'death'.

"He wanted me dead so badly that he was willing to come after me himself," she continued. "And, since I knew I was no match for him in a duel, I needed to find a way to make him think I was dead."

"We developed a combination of a potion and a spell," Snape said. "It suspended her body between death and life, and she existed as an astral projection."

"The hourglass indicated how long until I could reanimate my body," Bones said. "All I had to do was make sure the timing was right."

"How'd you do the bit with the ashes, then?" Robards asked. "They read as you."

"Ah," Bones grinned mischievously. "A little hair and fingernail clippings mixed into some from the fireplace, and none the wiser."

"So, you're not coming back," Susan said. The smile faded from Bones' face, and she shook her head slowly.

"Afraid not, dear," Bones said. "Unfortunately, I'll be able to do more dead than I would alive. The Ministry may have recognized Voldemort's return, but it seems they're no less likely to do anything about it."

It was true, Robards knew. They'd hardly put any effort into rounding up Death Eaters. Even with Scrimgeour in charge, Bones herself had been the one to prosecute those caught in the Department of Mysteries break-in a few months ago, otherwise nothing might have been done. It was easy to see why Voldemort would have targeted her first.

Despite Susan's wishes, they couldn't stay at Spinner's End forever. Lingering would have been suspicious, and since Bones wanted to stay dead, they really couldn't afford anyone taking notice.

Susan hugged her aunt for a long time at the door. When she finally let go, Bones turned to him.

"Send me a Patronus if you need me," she said. "I'll be around."

"You'd better be," Robards said. "Don't go off and die again. I'm not going to another six am funeral."

"I'll do my best," Bones promised, which was really all Robards could ask for. Her gaze lingered on Susan, waiting on the doorstep.

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye out for Bones Jr.," Robards reassured her. "Though she probably won't need my help – she's got her own steel."

"Thank you, Robards," said Bones.

And, as they apparated away, for the first time in weeks Robards felt hopeful. As long as there was a Bones around, things would be looking up.


End file.
